10month old never sleeps through - stands at end of cot crying

[Garnett]

Hi there - hoping for some advice. Our DS has never cracked sleeping through - our fault for keeping him in with us for too long probably. Currently he wakes between 3 and 5 times a night.

I think he struggles with self-soothing. Certainly if we put him down other than fast-asleep he stirs, sits up, and starts to cry.

Similarly, when he wakes up in the night, and we go in to see him, he is stood up at the end of the cot crying and looking for us.

Because of this, I can't see how we can teach him to go back to sleep.

I'm hoping somebody here's been through it and discovered the secret!

Thanks for any help.

There is no secret, unfortunately.

That does not mean babies don't sleep through, of course they do. But there is no magic wand to make it happen quickly or with no tears and drama.

Given that your son cannot settle without you at 10 months old, you will need to decide which "camp" you are in. You can either solve this quickly with much distress (controlled crying or Cry it Out), or very slowly but without the stress and drama (just waiting until he is ready, with the No Cry Sleep Solution). There is obviously a sliding scale in that, with sleep training methods falling in the middle (Gradual Withdrawal, Pick up Put Down, Shush Pat)

All those sleep training methods can be found on google, or feel free to ask here.

Suffice to say that babies and toddlers do not have the emotional brain development to sleep like an adult would (lie down, close eyes, go to sleep) until school age. Unless you just leave them to cry, they need something to help them sooth to sleep.

Some examples of self-soothing props include:
Dummy
Thumb/finger sucking
Special toy
Special "blankie"
Patting
Hair twiddling
Tickling
Rhythmic movement

Hi there,
I have the same problem. My son is about a year old and he refuses to sleep through the night. He just has to wake up during the night as if its his routine. No amount of patting helps. Even when he has his dummy he just has to get up at night and only calms down when i put him in the bed with me. I just dont know what to do. Have tried everything now but nothing helps.

Thanks a lot for the replies. We are lucky in that until about 4.30am he generally only needs to be picked up and cuddled and falls asleep within seconds and can be put back down within minutes. After that it takes a bit longer until come 5.30am that's morning time and nothing will work.

We tried a bit of controlled crying and decided that it doesn't suit him or us.

FATEdestiny, your post has made me realise that it's not the case (as I was mistakenly assuming) that, because he stands up before we go in to sooth him, that there's nothing we can do. We just have to work on breaking his habit of doing that.

I think some kind of Sh-pat might be the best bet. He's responded to that occassionally in the past.

You are absolutely right, it is just about breaking the habit. He needs to learn that when he wakes, he goes back to sleep. What he knows at the moment is that when he wakes, he stands up and shouts until you come.

You just keep lying him back down. Unless it is needed, I would avoid even picking him up or taking him out of the cot. Just lie him back down, shush pat and teach him to go back to sleep without standing up.